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Reading the thread about self defense made me think about Tom Crum's example of real communication in "The Magic of Conflict."

To paraphrase, he talks about 2 people wanting an orange. Being reasonable people they discuss it and come to the conclusion that they would cut the orange in 2 and each have half.

So they cut the orange in half and were sort of ok with the decision.

Then the first man peeled his orange and ate the fruit and the other man zested the skin and threw out the fruit.
With just a little more communication they both could have all of what they wanted.

When uke attacks with intention and commitment and nage responds with the same we can both have all that we want. It takes work and the willingness to be truthful but the results are good.

How do you explain some of what Morihei Ueshiba is supposed to have said? For example, according to Admiral Takeshita's diary, Ueshiba supposedly said, "Aiki is a means of achieving harmony with another person so that you can make them do what you want." To me, if I apply that to your example, if one man used aiki, he would have the orange while the other man did not. How do you see Ueshiba's words in your example?

I don't quote Ueshiba so you might be right in your reasoning and yet the other point is so interesting to me. Maybe you can do as Jun and Janet suggested, if you don't agree you could start another thread about this topic.

How do you explain some of what Morihei Ueshiba is supposed to have said? For example, according to Admiral Takeshita's diary, Ueshiba supposedly said, "Aiki is a means of achieving harmony with another person so that you can make them do what you want." To me, if I apply that to your example, if one man used aiki, he would have the orange while the other man did not. How do you see Ueshiba's words in your example?

With all due respect, Mark, I would ask that you publicly answer the following questions prior to responding to Mary:

Fred
I am not Mark though I agree with him in part and call him friend. So I have answered some of your questions below from my perspective.....

Quote:

Fred Little wrote:

With all due respect, Mark, I would ask that you publicly answer the following questions prior to responding to Mary:

What is your current level of active engagement with Aikido practice?

Currently I am involved with the dojo I started with back in 1974. The grandson of my original teacher is now dojo cho and I am there to support him. The dojo will celebrate 50 years of continuous existence in 2014

Quote:

Fred Little wrote:

Who were/are your direct Aikido instructors?

I put a picture up of who I felt had major influences on my path...it is in the Sensei section of the image gallery. some you may know and some you will not. I took ukemi from all of them.

Quote:

Fred Little wrote:

How much direct experience do you have with Aikido practice?

1974 to 2012....38 years

Quote:

Fred Little wrote:

Are you still a global climate change denialist?

it is what it is....not sure what the point was with this one other than to paint Mark with the color of another set you don't agree with or like.

Quote:

Fred Little wrote:

Are you now or have you ever been a bible-thumper?

Is this one to separate the bible-thumpers from the New Age spiritual folks? As for me I am neither.

As for this whole dialog about Aikido, Aiki, Aiki-do, and beyond.... Maybe it is all about context...maybe that is what you were trying to establish with your question to Mark.

As for the situation.....we have two ends of the spectrum here with folks that take a New Age approach to all of this feeling that Aiki is blending and timing driven by love and those who might be more appropriately as fundamentalist rather than Bible-Thumpers. To me, again to me, the new age approach works in a cooperative environment on a steady basis, depending on the individual it may work in other environments dependent upon a number of factors....including how skilled the attacker is, how many are involved...a bunch of elements. ............. this is or can be conversation that never ends......

I understand were love works and I also understand there are places were the time doesn't exist for love to work....so what do you use there? All that Mark has been getting at....and I agree....is there is training, years in the doing, that allows the body to remake itself in a way that supports movement that can fit any of the perspectives that have been put forward here. It is hard work and long running....it can't be given to you one day and be effective the next..... and that is the rub here.

In the end maybe is is best we just shut this discussion of who has or does have Aiki, what is effective and what is not, what is the best set of basic training skills, who has it and who doesn't, who does it and who doesn't.......and move on.

Each can be happy with the "where" they are.

As for me....I still see thinks I want to explore....and I have friends that can provide those avenues...Mark being one of those friends.

I don't quote Ueshiba so you might be right in your reasoning and yet the other point is so interesting to me. Maybe you can do as Jun and Janet suggested, if you don't agree you could start another thread about this topic.

So, let me get this straight ...

You want to talk about the world of aikido that you know.
I asked about the world of aikido that I know and want.

Your answer was to split the world in two and allow each of us to have half? Sort of like an orange?

The difference being that you want to split the orange, er world, and I asked questions trying to carry the conversation further ... into an area where perhaps we both could function. You won't know that until the conversation is had.

But, perhaps you're right, perhaps it is best to split the orange, er worlds, and each take a half. But, then I'm confused about your original post...

I don't quote Ueshiba so you might be right in your reasoning and yet the other point is so interesting to me. Maybe you can do as Jun and Janet suggested, if you don't agree you could start another thread about this topic.

I don't recall either of them saying that all posters to a thread must agree, it was mostly about being on-topic (which Mark was) and civility (also, which Mark was).

I think there are times, both can have what they want.
And there are times, only one can have what he wants. And the other can't.

Wisdom to me seems to learn to distinguish these situations.
Wisdom to me seems to learn to know, when it is poosible for me to give in and to give away.
Wisdom to me seems to understand, when I have to push through my interests and get what I want.

aikidō to me is a method to help me to push trough my interestes in a bodily conflict. Because it is made to make another person follow what I want to do him or her. This is what I learned all those years as the essence of aiki. And this I try to teach.
If I don't have to push throug my intentions, there is no need using - what I understand as - aikidō. Then I can just let go.

(18 years of practice, no one here will know my direct teacher [rokudan aikikai], but his teachers where Yamaguchi sensei and Sugino sensei [my teacher is german shibucho of the sugino dōjō. And are Endo and Tissier sensei. My level I don't want to judge myself. As a theologist I follow the hermeneutics of Klaus Berger. Does any of this informations in any way help to judge my answer?)

To me it's a question of good training, not 'what happens in a real conflict', which is not the same.

At least from what I've seen, good training can and should mean that both training partners are benefiting and learning from the training - this is true regardless of how cooperatively they are training, it's true even if both are 'fighting to win'.

It's not just taking turns getting a chance to train (which some people seem to think sometimes in an uke/nage paradigm -- or in other paradigms sometimes), both sides ARE training.

So yeah, to me the orange analogy speaks rather nicely to that uke/nage relationship.

To me it's a question of good training, not 'what happens in a real conflict', which is not the same.

At least from what I've seen, good training can and should mean that both training partners are benefiting and learning from the training - this is true regardless of how cooperatively they are training, it's true even if both are 'fighting to win'. It's not just taking turns getting a chance to train (which some people seem to think sometimes in an uke/nage paradigm), both sides ARE training.

So yeah, to me the orange analogy speaks rather nicely to that uke/nage relationship.

you don't like the peels? the orange peels could make a nice popuri. i liked the peels. if it was me, i'll ask if i can have the peels and peeling the fruit first, then after i peeled the fruit i would keep the peels, licked the whole fruit and gave it to the other person.

Wow. From this point onward I understand Mary's feeling that there is a hostile group.

Hello Nicholas,
There is no hostility from me. I am actually agreeing to Mary's initial post and as such trying to keep that communication going so that there is no need to split the orange, per se. Unfortunately Mary's reply was, IMO, to split the orange. Which, then, brings me back to her initial post, which I was agreeing with. For the idea to work, there must be an openness on both sides. I agree with Mary's example - I think the orange would work for both of us rather than splitting it. As the example given, one must extend the communication. Either Mary truly believes in that initial post's ideology in the greater scheme of things or she just wants to post about her very own topics with no interference from others -- in other words, cut the orange in half. Hence my confusion.

To me, it was an illustrative post to start bridging the gap ... opening conversation ... but perhaps not.

Perhaps only one side has been willing to extend the conversation between every single aikido group out there, between aikido and all other martial arts, between young and old, between varied practices of martial to just health only, between disparate levels of skill, between women and men, all laughing, talking, training, from joyous to intense training ... while the other side ... I don't know. I'm still waiting for the confusion to clear ... words are easy, living them is tough.

you don't like the peels? the orange peels could make a nice popuri. i liked the peels. if it was me, i'll ask if i can have the peels and peeling the fruit first, then after i peeled the fruit i would keep the peels, licked the whole fruit and gave it to the other person.

I thought Mary's OP was interesting AND I thought Mark Murray's reply was 100% on topic in that it brought in a quote from OSensei.
To return to the OP: it shows that reasonable discussion is limited by what mutual assumptions each of two parties bring to the table and hence what questions one is even capable of thinking to ask (like, what exactly do you want to do with the orange?).
I'm going to take this out of aikido for a bit, because I see this conundrum a lot in health care conversations, where the doctor, nurse or social worker has a goal and a set of priorities and assumptions that prevent them from asking the patient questions that would reveal what the patient's actual wishes, goals, and priorities are. So nobody is happy.
And to tie it back to what Mark wrote about OSensei and imposing his will.
I might have my goal, or will, to be that my patient will take the right dose of insulin.
But I don't go in with a big sign over my head announcing that. My approach is to ask as many questions as I can to get a sense of why my patient isn't taking the right dose of insulin. So I explore attitudes to diabetes and health in general to find out what his values are. I check on pharmacy and benefits and economic issues. I make a visit early in the morning to watch him test his blood sugar and draw up and give his insulin, so I can find out if there is a vision or memory or some other problem that nobody thought of. I find out if he actually understands the relationship between insulin and food and blood sugar and agrees with the doctor's current approach and desired blood sugar level or not.
In short I try to in a low key way identify any and all barriers to him taking the insulin as directed. Then I can get him to want to take it as directed and help him do so.
So I'm "imposing my will" by getting him to move towards the outcome I desire.
I think that when I've nailed something in the dojo it's essentially the same: I'm not muscling through or imposing a technique that I decide I want to do, I'm listening to uke enough that we can get to the same place, one that I want.

you don't like the peels? the orange peels could make a nice popuri. i liked the peels. if it was me, i'll ask if i can have the peels and peeling the fruit first, then after i peeled the fruit i would keep the peels, licked the whole fruit and gave it to the other person.

To talk about oranges, hell, I don't like orange juice and I don't like to eat them, but I do buy one now and then to add the zest to food and then I end up adding the juice to the recipe too just to not be wasteful. The rest just does in the compost....

Mark said: "For example, according to Admiral Takeshita's diary, Ueshiba supposedly said, "Aiki is a means of achieving harmony with another person so that you can make them do what you want." To me, if I apply that to your example, if one man used aiki, he would have the orange while the other man did not. How do you see Ueshiba's words in your example?"

Well, one way of looking at it, as I said earlier, is the difference between a training situation (which IMO should be mutually beneficial) and the eventual application of that training in an actual conflict (where there may be one who benefits and one who loses).

I like this way of looking at it, too, though.

Janet said: "So I'm "imposing my will" by getting him to move towards the outcome I desire.
I think that when I've nailed something in the dojo it's essentially the same: I'm not muscling through or imposing a technique that I decide I want to do, I'm listening to uke enough that we can get to the same place, one that I want."

'achieving harmony with another person so that you can make them do what you want' sounds a bit like leading someone into choosing what you wanted them to choose all along. E.g., you leave your opponent, maybe slightly bemused, standing there (or lying there ) holding part of the orange you wanted them to have, remembering reaching for it, and thinking it seemed to make sense to do so at the time.

Though to be sure, that may be stretching the idea of 'everyone getting all of what they want' more than a bit. Though maybe your opponent did fully want it for a moment.

But my initial reaction to the OP was about training, not a 'real' physical conflict. Because the words uke and nage were used, and to me those are words used to describe a training and teaching paradigm, not a 'real' conflict. I'm not sure the concept of uke and nage really applies in the same way outside of a training environment?

But my initial reaction to the OP was about training, not a 'real' physical conflict. Because the words uke and nage were used, and to me those are words used to describe a training and teaching paradigm, not a 'real' conflict. I'm not sure the concept of uke and nage really applies in the same way outside of a training environment?

It depends, I think, on WHAT outside of a training environment you are talking about.
Me and my patient is closer to uke/nage than it is to warfare.
Cooperative training is not combat, combat is not a street mugging, etc....however in terms of verbal exchanges involving differing goals and values I think the "uke/nage" paradigm often is helpful.

When uke attacks with intention and commitment and nage responds with the same we can both have all that we want. It takes work and the willingness to be truthful but the results are good.

I think there is a clear distinction between tools and approaches used to resolve conflicts prior to it actual coming to blows...becoming a physical altercation...and those used once it has become physical. Any number of folks have taken Aikido concepts, principles, approaches, interpretations and modeled them into set that cam be used in the office, in schools, other work places, with family....any number of sitting. What happens when the conflict goes past the point of talking, then it skipped past that point, when you step into a situation you talk your way out of.....when someone is coming on to you to take you apart. When these folks are skilled and will not throw themselves out of balance, will not step back unto you are down...and maybe not even then. When someone wants something you have and are not willing to share it and you can't get agreement to share..... Sometime the choices may only be you or him..... what do you do?

All of the conflict resolution approaches are good, useful, should be trained and carried in one's toolkit. They need to be used as first choice. You need other skills as well, maybe 'old' school stuff, a look back at the training that was in place when most conflicts were more visibility physical.

To paraphrase what one of the more highly though of Aikido teachers here said years ago...."a knife is for cutting vegetables or for cutting people...you need the skills at both to make the right choice of when to use either....."

It is the same with what we are "conflicting" over here..... I am not against one or the other side....just when one says that the other is not needed........ One side saying one faction saying that some aspect of the needed training are missing and the other side saying it is not needed or we already do that......

I think there is a clear distinction between tools and approaches used to resolve conflicts prior to it actual coming to blows...becoming a physical altercation...and those used once it has become physical. ...
To paraphrase what one of the more highly though of Aikido teachers here said years ago...."a knife is for cutting vegetables or for cutting people...you need the skills at both to make the right choice of when to use either....."